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Post by snowfairy on Jun 18, 2022 0:30:45 GMT -5
I recently saw a discussion about Ted Bundy's relationship with Ann Rule on another site. Some said that they weren't as close as she wanted people to believe in her book and others thought she told the truth about everything. From what I've heard and what members of his own family have said, they were never anything more than co-workers. When he was arrested in Utah, she went to visit him in jail, wrote letters to him and they talked on the phone, not because they were friends, but because she was gathering information for her book. I know that on sites like reddit, Ann Rule is considered holy and if you say anything against her, you get attacked. I think -- I hope -- this site is different. So what does everybody think? Was she being truthful about being his close friend, or was she just an opportunist?
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Post by Graveyardbride on Jun 18, 2022 2:29:11 GMT -5
I recently saw a discussion about Ted Bundy's relationship with Ann Rule on another site. Some said that they weren't as close as she wanted people to believe in her book and others thought she told the truth about everything. From what I've heard and what members of his own family have said, they were never anything more than co-workers. When he was arrested in Utah, she went to visit him in jail, wrote letters to him and they talked on the phone, not because they were friends, but because she was gathering information for her book. I know that on sites like reddit, Ann Rule is considered holy and if you say anything against her, you get attacked. I think -- I hope -- this site is different. So what does everybody think? Was she being truthful about being his close friend, or was she just an opportunist? She exaggerated her relationship with him and a lot of other things and I didn’t trust her. When I read The Stranger Beside Me, I came across several errors of fact concerning Florida and the Tallahassee area. I recall at one point she claimed someone dialed 911, however, there was no 911 service in Tallahassee in 1978. She also claimed she had to leave her job as a police officer after a year because of poor eyesight, but if her eyesight was so poor she couldn’t do her job, she would never have been accepted at the police academy in the first place. I’ve heard she was fired from the police force.
Although I read several of her books because she was the only one who wrote about certain high profile murders, e.g., the Diane Downs case, I did not care for her writing style. For example, I found her tendency to go on ad nauseam about some investigator’s personal life, or whatever, for the purpose of filling space, particularly irritating.
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Post by jason on Jun 18, 2022 11:18:47 GMT -5
I recently saw a discussion about Ted Bundy's relationship with Ann Rule on another site. Some said that they weren't as close as she wanted people to believe in her book and others thought she told the truth about everything. From what I've heard and what members of his own family have said, they were never anything more than co-workers. When he was arrested in Utah, she went to visit him in jail, wrote letters to him and they talked on the phone, not because they were friends, but because she was gathering information for her book. I know that on sites like reddit, Ann Rule is considered holy and if you say anything against her, you get attacked. I think -- I hope -- this site is different. So what does everybody think? Was she being truthful about being his close friend, or was she just an opportunist? When I was studying criminal justice at Loyola New Orleans, I attended a presentation in which Ann Rule and some FBI profiler discussed the serial murders in the Baton Rouge area. Even though there were reports the killer was black, she absolutely insisted he was white, had an unkempt appearance, couldn't hold a job, lived alone or with his parents, never had a long-term relationship with a woman, had no significant criminal history and may have worked in law enforcement at one time. If you know anything about these murders, you know that when Derrick Todd Lee was finally caught, he was black, had a neat appearance, had worked the same job for years, lived with his wife and children, had a long rap sheet and never worked in law enforcement. Rule was an ugly, dumpy, red-headed, troll-like creature who thought she knew all there was to know about serial killers because she had once worked on a crisis hotline with Ted Bundy. She exaggerated her relationship with Bundy to launch her career and The Stranger Beside Me was a bestseller because people were interested in Bundy, not because of her writing skills. The Deliberate Stranger by Richard Larsen is a much better book and he was a lot closer to Bundy than Ann Rule ever was, but because he didn't travel all over the country pretending to know all there was to know about serial killers, his name is never associated with Bundy's. I've heard that Ann Rule was livid when Larsen's book was made into a TV movie instead of hers.
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Post by JoannaL on Jun 18, 2022 15:16:23 GMT -5
Ann Rule was self-aggrandizing and I had my doubts about a lot of her claims. Those of you who know the Diane Downs story know she gave birth to a baby while in prison and a few years ago, Ann Rule claimed Downs told her the name of the man who fathered the child, who was adopted and is now known as Becky Babcock. When Babcock found out she was the daughter of Diane Downs, she wanted to know the identity of her father, but Rule refused to tell her. Later on, a woman who once worked at the California prison where Downs is held said Diane Downs told others Rule was lying and she never told her who the father was. I never understood why Rule claimed to know the father’s identity if she wasn’t going to reveal it. Why say anything at all? I thought she was lying and claimed she knew solely for the publicity.
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Post by madeline on Aug 7, 2023 19:58:29 GMT -5
Ann Rule was self-aggrandizing and I had my doubts about a lot of her claims. Those of you who know the Diane Downs story know she gave birth to a baby while in prison and a few years ago, Ann Rule claimed Downs told her the name of the man who fathered the child, who was adopted and is now known as Becky Babcock. When Babcock found out she was the daughter of Diane Downs, she wanted to know the identity of her father, but Rule refused to tell her. Later on, a woman who once worked at the California prison where Downs is held said Diane Downs told others Rule was lying and she never told her who the father was. I never understood why Rule claimed to know the father’s identity if she wasn’t going to reveal it. Why say anything at all? I thought she was lying and claimed she knew solely for the publicity. Some of those who attended her events say she saw serial killers behind every bush and greatly exaggerated the number of serial killers operating at any one time. I believe someone questioned her about this and she said something to the effect that it was better to be safe than sorry. I've also heard that she exaggerated her knowledge about certain cases and pretended to have inside information that she did not have, which is probably what she was doing in the Diane Downs case. I've read most of her books, but like someone else said, she rambles on with a lot of irrelevant information to fill space.
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